Authors in Issue 72 are:
Bonnie Bostrom
Edward L. Canavan
Cati Porter
Mark T. Evans
Tobi Alfier
Peter Nash
Kent Wilson
Bobby Norman
Timothy Robbins
Jonathan B. Ferrini
and Ann Howells
Artists and Photographers in this issue include:
Bonnie Bostrom
Kathy French
and Kim Martin
Click here to purchase Inquire Within on-line ($6)
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you can choose Cholla Needles Arts & Literary Library
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11/20/22 - Today at 4 PM on Z107.7 the mellifluous voice of Pat Kearns will be introducing tunes by ten of the songwriters who appeared in issue 71 of Cholla Needles, which was edited by Gabriel Hart. Tune in! If you are at another event at the time - never fear - a podcast of the show will be available later in the week. However, there's nothing like hearing "live" radio! As we said: "Tune in! 4 PM!" Tap on the picture below to hear our local station live wherever you are =:-)
Open Poetry Reading
November 6, 2022 3-5 PM
FEATURING:
Gabriella Evaro
Georg Altziebler
Pat Kearns
Tim Chinnock
Cristie Carter
JD Rudometkin
Paul Cullum
Gabriel Hart
and. . .YOU!!!
Book Review by Sam Schraeger
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MODERN SONG by BOB DYLAN (Simon & Shuster)
Desolation Row
may be the best song ever written, followed by several other Dylan songs, like
Highway 61 Revisited, Like a Rolling Stone, All Along the Watchtower and so
many others.
But I digress.
In this book,
Dylan takes a deep dive and looks at several songs in detail, 66 songs, in
fact.
I must
digress once more to add that Dylan did not choose to review one Jimi Hendrix
song for some reason. I bring this up because it is pretty well-known that
Dylan loved whenever Hendrix did his songs, most notably All Along the
Watchtower and the live version of Like a Rolling Stone, performed at Monterey
Pop in 1967. When I first saw what this book was about, I thought surely
Hendrix would be included. Alas, no.
Dylan started working on this book in 2010, according to the “about the author” feature at the end of the book.
Mr. Dylan obviously had a lot of fun writing this book. He got to put words together as only he can about one of his favorite subjects, songs. And he got to say whatever he wanted to say, in his own inimitable style.
This is a wonderful tour through Dylan’s universe of his favorite songs. It is an amazing exploration as he explains why he thinks these songs have something powerful and amazing in them.
The songs themselves, considered modern by the title of this book, actually go back as far as to Stephen Foster in the 1800s. Well, that is fairly modern, I guess.
In describing Elvis Costello, he says, “Elvis is one of those guys whose fans fall somewhere between the two poles of passion and precision. There are people who check off the boxes of his life with the same obsession of someone completing a train schedule, while others don't know anything beyond the fact that he sings a song that accompanied a particularly devastating breakup.”
Here's another snippet: “There's a lot of people in Little Richard’s songs, all the stereotypes; Uncle John, Long Tall Sally, Mary and Jenny, Daisy, Sue and Melinda. They're all slipping by in the shady world of sex and dreams and giving you a run for your money.”
Also: “The only
reason money is worth anything is because we agree it is.”
And: “A record is so much better when you can believe it.”
Additionally: “The thing about being on the road is you're not bogged down by anything, not even bad news. You give pleasure to other people and you keep your grief to yourself.”
One of the things that draws me into this book is that, while Dylan is analyzing each of the 66 songs, he is doing each one in a way there's personal, each analysis is a short story. He’ll say something like, “You come home, you're tired, she wants to fight, you just wanna sleep.”
The story he often tells is not how you originally thought of that song, but so often it makes so much sense. You see a whole new dimension you hadn't thought of before.
The man can express himself!
For example, “Desire fades but traffic goes on forever.”
And: “Being a writer is not something one chooses to do. It's something you just do and sometimes people stop and notice.”
Also: “Anyone
who has hunted with a shotgun will tell you, you might enjoy the rabbit, but
you're gonna spend a certain amount of time biting down on buckshot.”
In addition to the lessons Dylan gives us about the songs themselves, he often takes a detour to give us a history lesson, as he does when he reviews Black Magic Woman, which was done by Santana in 1970. We find out about the script writer Leigh Bracket in a two page aside before being brought skillfully back to the topic at hand, which Dylan does masterfully several times in this book.
And, of course, he makes several comments such as, “There is nothing scarier than someone earnest in a delusion.”
The book is also replete with
many pictures, some photographs of the singers, others representations such as
ads for shoes when he reviews Blue Suede Shoes. There are a good selection of
these and they are a nice enhancement to Dylan's writing.
In this book, as
in his songs, Bob Dylan takes us on a dizzying journey into his vision of the
universe, this time as it relates to songs.
And, as usual, it is well worth
the trip. Get your copy by clicking here.
ANOTHER REVIEW:
The Philosophy of Modern Song by Bob Dylan
Book Review by John Krieg:
In many ways this book reveals more about Bob Dylan by inference than anything ever directly written. In short, this is rarified air from the mountain top. Drink it in, hold it until your lungs are about to burst, and then revel in the high. Drugs such as this don’t come around very often.
The predominately first-person narrative, aimed directly at you lets you know that Dylan is on to you. That’s intuition on steroids, and he lays it on thick. Personally, I’m humbled and terrified that he seems to know me better that I know myself, or at least that part of myself that I’ll admit to. Dylan draws back the curtain before we are ready to perform and the audience learns more at that moment than we could ever act out in front of them.
The selection of the 66 songs he profiles is staggering and surprising. He skips around with the dates with a lot of time spent in the fifties when he was just beginning to evolve into his expansive world view.
Sifting through his snippets of admiration and tidbits of nuanced advice here are just a few of his illuminations on the art of song writing:
“Knowing a singer’s life story doesn’t particularly help your understanding of a song. Frank Sinatra’s feelings over Ava Gardner allegedly inform “I’m a Fool to Want You,” but that’s just trivia. It’s what a song makes you feel about your own life that’s important.”
“A serial killer would sing this song. The lyrics kind of point toward that. Serial killers have a strangely formal sense of language and might refer to sex as the art of making love.”
“Rock and roll went from being a brick through the window to the status quo —from actual leather-jacketed greaseballs making rockabilly records to Kiss belt buckles sold in mall stores, to Thug Life press-on tattoos. The music gets marginalized as the bean counters constantly recalibrate the risk-to-reward ratio of public taste.”
Dylan is most definitely having fun here: lock the editors out of the room, and let it rip like Kerouac did when he taped pages together so that they would flow like a torrent through his typewriter and not interrupt his unencumbered stream of consciousness. A perfect example of Dylan’s still freewheeling riffing would be his profiling of the song “Pancho and Lefty” as written by Towne’s Van Zandt and sung by Willie Nelson and Merl Haggard:
“…The worst thing about a song like “Pancho and Lefty” is that it put enough money in Towne’s pocket for him to poison himself. He died on New Year’s Day. Just like his idol Hank Williams had forty-four years earlier.”
“Willie Nelson could, as they say, sing the phone book and make you weep – he could also write the phone book …”
“The underclass (the Honest World), the downtrodden peasants, are scared shitless of the ruthless Pancho. He squeezes them for all they’re worth, and makes them suffer. Lefty is some kind of backstabber. Both these guys are nonconformist thieves. The aristocratic establishment, the upper-class landowners, are too strong for them, and the lower classes have nothing much worth stealing, so they attack the middle class, taking advantage of and exploiting their false values, materialism, hypocrisy, and insecurities…”
“Pancho and Lefty. Two reflections of each other. Neither of these guys thought about how to make a successful exit.”
The Philosophy of Modern Song is an exhilarating and no-holds-barred romp into the world of the song writer, into the minds and craftsmanship of those who are in reality the true poets of these chaotic and tempestuous modern times. The songwriters, performers, and subjects are all tied up in a tidy little bow masterfully drawn tight by a man that is at least their equal and their sympathizer. This book grabs your attention quicker than nails on a chalkboard and hits harder than a cattle prod enema. Long live Bob Dylan, and God bless him.
Get your copy by clicking here.
Click on book covers for more info. . .
Other Writings by Sam Schraeger:
Two Books Reviewed by Greg Gilbert
Mike’s Magic Burgers by Rose Baldwin
While the setting is
fanciful, the characters are authentic in their needs and backstories. Examples
include Earl Witherspoon, an attorney in the grip of a midlife crisis; Destiny
Robertson, a former basketball star who is uncertain about what’s next; and
John, a young mechanic who loves his job while hating the accounting classes
he’s taking to satisfy his girlfriend’s wishes. Other characters deal with
their own issues as well, the central theme being a practical guide to finding
and following one’s bliss. At the center of these lives is Mike, the founder
and chef, the wizard, so to speak. He encourages, cautions, and guides as is
necessary, and is supported by matrilinear wisdom.
The stories are episodic, the
chapters short, the humor delightful, and the lessons profound as they deal
with a range of ages and circumstances. This is a book that would do well as a
television series (think Fantasy Island), a concept that offers a rich
catalogue of possibilities. Personally, I enjoyed Rose Baldwin’s book and
happily recommend it. It’s engaging and thought provoking.
* * * * *
Most notably for this reviewer (a college trustee and former school board member) is the author's understanding of school district politics at all levels and how the laws that govern public meetings operate. Verisimilitude lives or dies on such details. From the Governor's office to the statehouse to the local board and the households of the influential and those of the immigrants, Vail allows each story to be guided by its own interests and biases.
Where the reader will find moral grounding, or the absence thereof, is in the stories of the characters. The protagonist, Micah, is a widower whose purpose in life is to locate and develop school sites. As noble as that is, he is not a one-dimensional do-gooder. His singular fixation on his work, particularly during his wife's cancer and subsequent death, has cost him his son, now a runaway. His son's story develops as a secondary theme, the irony being that while Micah serves multitudes of children, he fails to provide a nurturing love for his son, and seeks salvation of a more personal nature.
The book's narration is limited omniscient third-person , past tense. Thus, the reader comes to know the feelings of certain characters, particularly Micah, his son, and a woman whose story frames the novel. That said, it's Micah's story that propels the reader through a journey of loss, moral ambiguity, and discovery.
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